Digital Storytelling

Respond to the questions below. You may add to and/or edit others' responses.

How does digital storytelling benefit students?

Active engagement
Benefits visual and auditory learning
Interdisciplinary projects
Engaging and interesting
Use higher thinking, organization, and planning skills

What kinds of instructional activities lend themselves to student productions?

Patterns and cycles
Story retelling
Experience retelling
biographical projects
Literary projects
Explore forms of writing
Events and timelines

What digital storytelling tools do you use with students, and why?

Photostory
PowerPoint
Frames
discoverystreaming.com
slideshare.com
Windows Movie Maker - simple to use
flickr

WWW.voicethread.com

What kinds of challenges (technical or logistical) have you encountered when using digital storytelling tools?

Movie Maker tends to freeze up when the project gets too large.
Time consuming
Projects too complicated
understanding extensions
microphone issues
Size of files get huge
Teachers not familiar and not willing to give up so much instructional time.
Copyright laws

What tips would you provide to a teacher using digital storytelling tools for the first time?

Know how and where to save projects under construction
Step by step handouts
Expect the project to take longer
Use a storyboard
Write dialogue
Group work provides differentiation
Gather resources ahead of time to narrow project into more workable project within time frame.
Make their own project ahead of time to facilitate understanding of an effective presentation

What elements do you look for when evaluating student productions?

Creativity
Student feedback and assesment
Follow guidelines - completion of project

Share examples of effective digital storytelling activities that you have completed with students.

Phases of the moon
Butterfly lifecycle
Mother's Day Story
ABC of KIndergarten book
Simple Machines
Field trip retelling
Economics around the school
Seasons
Geometry
Explorers